


Tomorrow Finally Came

by billspilledquill



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 07:44:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12228579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: The day before the barricade arrives, Enjolras and Grantaire talked about tomorrow. And tomorrow finally came.





	Tomorrow Finally Came

**Author's Note:**

> Im reading les mis and they are dying faster than i die for them what

 

It felt like tomorrow.

There was a tomorrow— Enjolras thought, a tomorrow without him, without _them_ , without his revolution, without a tomorrow to expect.

He looked down at his hands, hands that held muskets to protest, to protect, to reject everything that was wrong and wrong and wrong— pens to write pamphlets about revolutionary fervors, favors to ask and promise to keep.

The melody echoed the tavern with its nosy public, while he stared at the passions of his men, the joys of tomorrow, smothered under a clink with their glasses on their hands, fear underneath it all.

Grantaire was watching him, he knew, he just couldn't bring himself to care. Marius was probably thinking about that girl again. Others were enjoying the tomorrow they will create, and Enjolras was glad that they knew that there would be no promise there, today will come without their effort, but a day after would be a day more to the revolution, and revolution often side with nothing but death.

A promise of tomorrow was too hard to keep, so he kept reminding himself that there will always be a tomorrow without him anyway.

“Drink with me,” the voice was silent, and everybody turned to Grantaire. He was standing up from his usual crouched or sitting position, and somehow he managed to shut anyone in the room. His eyes were fixed on him, “drink with me.” He repeated, almost pleading.

Enjolras hand tightened, his eyes darting away, “There’s no time.”

“There’s always time,” Grantaire approached with slow steps and the room regained its joyful atmosphere once more, there was a wonder how dreams can shut their eyes from his loyal friends, “and you understand this more than anyone.”

“Yes,” he breathed, “ _yes_ , but now there is a higher cause.”

“Tomorrow maybe,” he said, lifting his drink and presented it to him and a grin he couldn't quite place, “but now there is only us.”

He sighed, snatching his drink from his hand— it smelled like cheap wine, Grantaire should really change his tastes— and walk outside, knowing he will follow him.

(See, he really enjoyed his friends’ presence, but he sometimes hoped they wouldn't follow so blindly to him, if ever they got hurt, they should run. Run and being annoyingly happy and knowing that their friend would be glad to see them alive.

But these schoolboys are stupid, stupidly honorable. He wished Grantaire would be an exception.

Turning to see him under the dim light of the moon, seeing Grantaire’s soft smile playing on his lips, as if he was as blind as the others, as stupid as—

He would give anything to make him the exception.)

The barricade was made of rubbish— empty chairs and empty tables— they once sat on before this night, and it didn't matter, because more chairs will add to it tomorrow, more tables will be yanked to the top of the barricade, and more people will join to the tomorrows they will have the chance to live in.

“Your life is just as insignificant as mine, you know that?” He broke the silence first, voice firm yet full of wonder, he sat on the chair with an broken arm, its red contrasting with the black of dawn.

Grantaire just gave a laugh, “Probably more than you,” he said before Enjolras had a time to interrupt, “what? Is our fearless leader having an emotional crisis?”

“No,” he answered while taking a tip of the cheap wine, it tasted as bad as its scent, “this tastes disgusting.”

“It should,” he shrugged, “it’s mine.”

There was silence, and then Grantaire sat next to him, hidden concern in his eyes, “You believe too much, Apollo. It will only hurt you.”

“It's not true,” he returned the drink to its owner, “and even I have things I can't afford to believe in.”

There was so many things he can't believe anymore, like his parents, his money, the promises he gave and received—

“What?” Their shoulders almost touched, it was a too comfortable sight to be truly comfortable with, “If it's me, well I guess that's not a problem—“

“ _Tomorrow_ ,” he snapped, angry at his tactics, “tomorrow is something I can't make myself believe.”

(And for now, he can't afford himself to look Grantaire in the eyes.)

“Oh,” he said after a moment of silence, as if he was shocked or disappointed, “even you can't believe in your own plan Apollo? It was your plan to build a barricade at first, you know.”

“Our plan,” he whispered, “no, I believe in my friends, I believe that our actions will bring a better France, I have no doubt about this.”

“Then what? What can you fear if you aren't even scared of death?” Garantaire asked, genuinely curious, “What can be possibly worse than your death?”

Enjolras stared a long time to that broken chair, the one in front of him, didn't matter which one, they all looked the same, “The promise of tomorrow, the impossibility of tomorrow, the tomorrow that we won't be there to see— I can't believe in a tomorrow that bring a future that starts the past.”

Their shoulders are touching now, he wasn't sure who leaned in, but it didn't matter. Their little lives had always meant nothing at all.

“Okay,” Grantaire said, “but I don't see why that is a problem.”

“Don't you understand? We can't change the tomorrow, even when that's what we need.”

Grantaire’s eyes shone with a pride that made him blink for half a second, “Be there then.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but choose to say what he actually meant instead, “What do you mean?”

“We,” Grantaire said, gesturing him and the others at the tavern, “we will maybe be forgotten, but _you_ will not. You will be there, that bullshit tomorrow you wish to be in. You will be written down, and you will survive tomorrow, and the other and the other and—“

Grantaire looked so bright and happy at that moment, and Enjolras thought, this is the tomorrow I want to have.

( _This is the tomorrow I want to live with._ )

“Why?” His voice cracked in the end and his tone incredibly soft,“Why can you be so sure?”

Grantaire stood up and look at him, the moon was in his eyes, “Because if you are tomorrow’s past, then you will be its future.”

His friends soon joined them after that, and that night, everyone was drinking too much. But it didn't matter, their little lives didn't really count at all.

 

 

 

 

(When Enjolras faced the guards and lifted the red flag high, the warmth of Grantaire’s hand seemed to tell him one thing. It made him smile.

The red flag covered his body, and he felt nothing more than the hand still holding him tight, his smile didn't fade away as his heart stopped beating. The other hand was clinging to the flag tainted in blood, make it redder than it already was. 

 

 

 

  
_You have reached your tomorrow, Apollo_.)

 


End file.
